Coral reef origins of atmospheric dimethylsulfide at Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Abstract. Atmospheric dimethylsulfide (DMS_a), continually derived from the world's oceans, is a feed gas for the tropospheric production of new sulfate particles, leading to cloud condensation nuclei that influence the formation and properties of marine clouds and ultimately the Earth's radiation budget. Previous studies on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia, have indicated coral reefs are significant sessile sources of DMS_a capable of enhancing the tropospheric DMS_a burden mainly derived from phytoplankton in the surface ocean; however, specific environmental evidence of coral reef DMS emissions and their characteristics is lacking. By using on-site automated continuous analysis of DMS_a and meteorological parameters at Heron Island in the southern GBR, we show that the coral reef was the source of occasional spikes of DMS_a identified above the oceanic DMS_a background signal. In most instances, these DMS_a spikes were detected at low tide under low wind speeds, indicating they originated from the lagoonal platform reef surrounding the island, although evidence of longer-range transport of DMS_a from a 70 km stretch of coral reefs in the southern GBR was also observed. The most intense DMS_a spike occurred in the winter dry season at low tide when convective precipitation fell onto the aerially exposed platform reef. This co-occurrence of events appeared to biologically shock the coral resulting in a seasonally aberrant extreme DMS_a spike concentration of 45.9 nmol m⁻³ (1122 ppt). Seasonal DMS emission fluxes for the 2012 wet season and 2013 dry season campaigns at Heron Island were 5.0 and 1.4 µmol m⁻² day⁻¹, respectively, of which the coral reef was estimated to contribute 4 % during the wet season and 14 % during the dry season to the dominant oceanic flux.